Women ‘banished’ under Abbott: Gillard

Addressing the launch of Labor's Women for Gillard campaign, the prime minister said women would "once again (be) banished from the centre of Australia's political life" under a government led by Tony Abbott.
Photo: Mark Graham

by
Claire Stewart

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has re-ignited the gender debate to pull more votes from female supporters, warning that women will be “banished from political life" if Tony Abbott wins the September election.

“Finally but very importantly, we don’t want to live in an Australia where abortion again becomes the political plaything of men who think they know better," Ms Gillard told a group of about 140 female Labor voters in Sydney on Tuesday.

However University of Technology, Sydney, Professorial Fellow Eva Cox said voters shouldn’t be swayed by politics that uses gender to rally votes.

“This strikes me as part of continuing to push the misogyny thing.

“If women want to vote for Julia, they should do it based on the policies that both parties are putting up, not on the possibility that there might be something on abortions, given the federal government control in that area is minimal."

Abortion has been decriminalised in the ACT and Victoria and can be performed in certain circumstances in NSW, the Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania.

“It is still a contentious thing, but it’s only a federal issue in terms of whether it gets paid for under certain Medicare numbers," Ms Cox said.

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Gender commentator Dr Leslie Cannold said abortion was a litmus test issue for women, with one in three expected to have one during their life.

“Whether Julia Gillard’s discussion of these issues will lead Australian women to vote for Labor is unclear.

Dr Cannold said the Prime Minister’s decision, along with then Health Minister Nicola Roxon, to “put decisions about medicines essential for women’s health on an evidential footing," was a step forward.

“As Health Minister Tony Abbott, with the active political support of a number of the men who are likely to wield positions of power in the next government, persistently agitated to restrict women’s access to abortion, to stigmatise the procedure and to shame the women and health care workers involved in it," she said.

In March, opposition leader Tony Abbott softened his public position on abortion, saying he would not let his strong Catholic faith interfere with policy choices and that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare."

He later also confirmed he would accept the advice of technical experts about whether controversial abortion drug RU486 should be listed on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, if it is not approved before the election.

Ms Cox said pointers about the Labor government’s policy position on women were more apparent in decisions to shift the sole parent payment to the much lower Newstart Allowance payment.

About 83 per cent of individuals claiming the sole parent payment are women, with some marginal seats in Western Sydney, including Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury’s seat of Lindsay, home to between 4,000 and 5,000 people who rely on the benefit to supplement their wages, Ms Cox said.